“The soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
-Wendell Berry
It's high summer, friends. The first leaves are showing a tinge of red, and the greens are fading. The blooms are bright and beautiful, and it's been so fun to put together these cheerful bouquets.
I love so much the above quote by the formidable Wendell Berry. It's really all about the dirt. The health of the soil. When we first looked at our farm last spring, we walked out to the the fields with the realtor. I'll never forget the picture of my husband bending down outlined by the expanse of the view and the trees and the big gray sky. He picked up a handful of dirt from our fields to be and squeezed it together, brought it to his nose and inhaled deeply. I felt tied to this place from the first look. I'll always remember that first introduction to our soil.
We've started bedding down some of our field (yes it's that time already!) and building soil for next year. We've planted cover crops of sorghum sudan grass and buckwheat in our fields to grow soil for next year. Cover crops are so awesome. In our opinion, they are one of the least expensive, easiest ways to build organic matter and improve the quality and resilience of soil. They protect against erosion too. Farming requires one to think long-term. It's just August, and we're already planning what will be planted where for next May and June. I love that about farming in the Midwest. By design we have to shut down for a few months, and regroup and plan for next year. You guys, I'm so excited about next year! Now that we have a little bit of understanding of this beautiful place, and don't have to build a cooler and set up our fields, we can go crazy growing all kinds of new varieties. Eeee!
This year has been such a huge learning experience, and investment putting infrastructure in place, and finding what works for our family and this ground. We farmed fields this season that were still covered this spring with remnants of old corn stalks from 2014, and soybean plants in 2015, and has been in that conventional crop rotation for at least ten years. We had our neighbor plow it last fall to break it up, then got in there as early as we could with our walk-behind BCS tractor to rotary plow and till like crazy, feeding the soil organic turkey manure fertilizer and fish emulsion for fertility.
We just jumped right into it, without the luxury of soil-building, so we could produce and pay our mortgage with the flowers and food grown on this new land. We staked and created our beds, and seeded the walkways and harvest roads with perennial clover for next year and beyond, and ryegrass for this year, and planted our babies.
We've also had many lessons in the resiliency of nature this year. In late June we weathered an herbicide drift that washed our field in yellow death spots over the course of a few days. We fed fish emulsion every few days to beef up our plants immune systems, but still lost a few. In early July we had straight-line winds and tornadoes that took out some of the plants, and stressed them all out, especially the babies. The succession plantings that should have been going in at that time didn't because we were so busy cleaning up and salvaging the plants that we could. We've been amazed by how well the plants have recovered from all of it.
Given the adversity of the weather and the new ground, we've been so grateful to grow some beautiful flowers and food out of these new fields, and are so grateful for what we've learned and what we've been able to do here on this new land. Due to those events, though, we have less flowers and food this late summer and fall than we'd originally planned. We'll keep you posted in the weekly availability as always.
Farming is a long-term project. Each year we'll build the soil with more organic matter, and plant more windbreak trees and perennials, and invest a lot more sweat equity in this piece of ground. In five years it will look very different here. We're looking forward to next year, and expanding our varieties, building a hoop house, and improving quality and efficiency.
Happy butterfly
Buckwheat cover crop
Cereal rye cover crop
Taking a break for s'mores with these guys. They're something good, these guys. The s'mores were too.
We're having a party! Saturday, Oct. 8, planning around 2 pm with a little music, and hot cider, and good company. You can meet our new little piece of earth where your flowers and food begin their lives. And we can see you and give you hugs and thank you for supporting our little family farm in person. Until then, keep up the great work.
Peace and high fives,
J,M+E
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